“What is it?”
“My glass—it’s in the box, and—and I should have got it out before I put the collar on. Thanks; I should have been lost without it. Oh! if I had forgotten it!”
With this awful reflection in his mind he bade a sorrowful good-night and walked off, with his head very erect, his elbows high up, and one hand fondling the nearly-neglected eyeglass.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” said Waterford, as he disappeared.
“It is—rot,” said Horace, emphatically. “Why ever don’t you laugh him out of it?”
“My dear boy, you might as well try to laugh the hair off his head. I’ve tried it a dozen times. After all, the poor dear fellow means no harm.”
“But what does he do now?”
“Oh, don’t ask me. According to his own account he’s the fastest man about town—goes to all the shows, hobnobs with all the swells, smokes furious cigars, and generally ‘mashes.’ But my private notion is he moons about the streets with the handle of his stick in his mouth and looks in a few shop windows, and gets half a dozen oysters for supper, and then goes home to bed. You see he couldn’t well get into much mischief with that collar on. If he went in for turn-downs I’d be afraid of him.”
The bell cut further conversation short, and in another minute Horace and Reginald were walking arm-in-arm in the street outside.
There was much to talk about, much to lament over, and a little to rejoice over. Horace felt half guilty as he told his brother of his good fortune, and the easy quarters into which he had fallen. But Reginald was in too defiant a mood to share these regrets as much as he would have done at any other time. As long as Durfy wanted to get rid of him, so long was he determined to stay where he was, and meanwhile in young Gedge he had some one to look after, which would make the drudgery of his daily work tolerable.